// FIELD NOTE #05 · 2024, 2025  · 6 min

Dying Sun

Game Design, Level Design

You play as Hurabi, a young nomad aboard a solar-powered sailboat, in search of the secrets of a lost civilization. A graduation project, rebooted between the first and second year of master’s.

Dying Sun
// SUMMARY · 90s

For the busy

You play as Hurabi, a young nomad aboard a solar-powered sailboat, in search of the secrets of a lost civilization. A graduation project, rebooted between the first and second year of master's.

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role
Level + Game Designer
team
10 people
engine
Unreal Engine 5.3
genre
Surf adventure
length
12 months
output
Playable demo released on Steam
// DEEP DIVE · process notes

01

Context

Dying Sun is a graduation project that went through a reboot between the first and second year of master’s. I joined the team in second year to fully rework the level design and turn the game from a semi open-world into a linear experience that still felt like freedom and choice.

The team had been mostly renewed and the scope had shifted. We first had to redefine the gameplay experience (mechanics, narrative, art direction) while keeping the 3Cs already in place, so we could focus our resources on building a polished demo.

02

Process

Before bringing the game into the engine, I started with environmental research and a detailed plan that structured our gameplay intentions. The goal : let players approach their journey at their own pace, whether they wanted a contemplative or a more dynamic experience.

I defined a macro vision for the level design : each zone needed its own rhythm, building a coherent intensity curve across the entire demo.

For the micro vision, I borrowed an approach from ski runs : whichever path you take, all of them converge to the same end point. Each section offers different routes and atmospheres, giving the illusion of choice while maintaining a linear progression.

One unique aspect of Dying Sun lies in its movement mechanic : the player can climb back up slopes. That opened opportunities to play with verticality and reinforce rhythm contrasts throughout the environment.

  • Blockout de la map Dying Sun — vue aérienne du terrain désertique avec rivière et falaises
  • Blockout de la map Dying Sun — vue en perspective du canyon désertique

03

Lessons

This project let me fully develop my level design vision and make real creative calls. I learned to scale my scope to the team’s capacity, while polishing every level element to stay true to the original vision.

Unlike my previous experiences, I didn’t have a project management role here. That gave me distance from how I usually approach team collaboration, and a better grasp of larger-scale production stakes.

Dying Sun is also the first project I’ve worked on to ship on Steam, even as a demo. Watching player feedback land and seeing a game’s impact on its audience is a genuinely formative experience.

// next field note
Limbos of Narinder →